


Hard Luck Hero

by devera



Category: Saiyuki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When life gives you lemons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Luck Hero

**Author's Note:**

> [Saiyuki_time](http://saiyuki-time.livejournal.com/) challenge #9: magic. 
> 
> Written in about 50 minutes. Post-Burial early days. The style is maybe a little experimental? The title shamelessly stolen from an awesome funny Sabu film, although this is maybe not so funny.

At first, it was broken mugs, and pictures falling off the walls, and plants that never yielded flowers. One week they found a dead dog in the back yard.

_Crap_ , said Gojyo, and _Shit, that's why I don't put them under glass_ , and _It's supposed to flower?_ and, _Man, gross. Guess we should bury it, huh?_

Then, wine soured in a few casks. Crops failed. One of the new houses in town just inexplicably fell down. Two newborns were struck down with polio, and there were eleven divorces and only four marriages.

_Hey_ , Gojyo said. _Don't look at me. I'm no home-wrecker._

Their milkman had a coronary. The girl who cut their hair disappeared one night during one of the worst storms of the season. They found a shoe a week later wedged in a tree down by the river.

It was a little town; people were bound to talk. Hakkai didn't listen, which was difficult when certain members of society seemed to have taken it upon themselves to look out for his continued well being. He had charms thrust upon him in the marketplace on shopping day, found strange symbols carved into their fence posts and markers on the road outside their house. People wanted him to eat more garlic; no, sew Jonwort into his clothes; no, no, no, iron was the only thing that would work. All he had to do was take four straight iron nails and...

_Are you sure, my dear?_ and _You're such a nice boy_ , and _I'd hate to see anything happen to you..._

Hakkai smiled, and told them, _thankyou but no_ , and imagined gouging the concerned, parental smiles out of their faces with the spoon he used for the curries.

He really didn't know what all the fuss was. He said as much to Gojyo, one night. Gojyo just looked up from the couch and the book he was reading, seemed kind of surprised for a second and then shrugged and turned around again. Hakkai made him a nice hot cup of tea, put it on the table in front of him and reminded him not to scald himself.

The next day, a truck swerved to avoid a cat, hit the town church and knocked the old bell out of its termite-infested housing; the truck driver and four chickens were killed instantly.

"Really, I've never seen an unluckier town," someone standing next to him in the crowd said, and it sounded so much like he'd just cracked a joke of some kind, Hakkai found himself turning before he'd even decided he didn't want to know.

"Anybody," said the man, smiling slightly at the ruined steeple, and his face was handsome and could have been anyone's. "Anybody would think the place was cursed."

Hakkai turned away again, pretending he hadn't actually spoken. He still had a few things to pick up, but the crash had created such a disturbance it was impossible to get by.

"Traditionally speaking, bad luck can be attributed to a number of things," the man continued helpfully, as if by ignoring him, Hakkai had initiated something anyway. "Eating meat on the first day of the year, praising newborns, failing to consult the Almanac for auspicious days for major events, having the wrong number of steps in a house, perhaps..."

"Stupidity," Hakkai listed under his breath, frowning darkly at the ground. "Wilful ignorance..."

"That too," the man said mildly and tipped the brim of his straw hat back a little to catch the sun, like it was a pleasant day and he was only out for a walk. His hair was wild and black and eyes were dark, and his black rimmed glasses glinted in the light. "Of course, there are far worse things, those that supposedly go against nature - death on a mass scale, forbidden arts, corrupted relics, unholy communion. For instance, they say that when intercourse between human and demon results in offspring, the very ground on which it walks is cursed. Pestilence, disaster, and misfortune follow in its wake. They used to put such children to death - usually by leaving them out for wild dogs to eat - once upon a time."

Hakkai found himself curling his hands into fists, and willed himself to uncurl them again before his nails cut into his palms.

"Is that so?" he said, equally mild. "How pointless and barbaric."

The man gave him a brief, amused look. "Perhaps." He gave a philosophical shrug. "It would be interesting if it were true about them, though, wouldn't it? Say, you wouldn't know where I could get a decent cup of coffee in this town? I've been travelling for a good long while..."

Hakkai stared at him for a moment, and then pointed behind them, away from the crowds and back towards the city centre.

"Thanks, friend," the stranger said and tipped his hat again, and then with another amused smile, turned and walked off. Hakkai stood for a little longer, staring at the scene before him, and then turned as well.

It seemed to take him forever, but when he finally stepped through his front door, Gojyo was wandering around the kitchen, barefoot and whistling some tune Hakkai didn't know. He seemed to have been cleaning up, which was a nice thought, and he was wearing one of Hakkai's aprons over his jeans and an old singlet. His hair was pinned up off his face, and when he turned and noticed Hakkai standing in the entryway, he smiled. It was nothing like that stranger's smile had been; it was warm and wide and generous and real.

"Hey," he said. "Thought you'd be gone longer. What, did you run out of money or something?"

Hakkai set his bag down on the table as he crossed the kitchen and Gojyo was standing there with a mug in his hand, one of the cracked ones that Hakkai had glued back together, staring at him like he didn't know what was going on. Hakkai stepped right up to him, right into his space, and then he put his arms around him, and pulled him forward and hugged him.

"I'm glad you're alive," he told him, face pressed into the boney dip of Gojyo's shoulder, feeling warmth and strength and the pulse of his blood in his veins. "Really glad."

"...Okay," Gojyo said carefully, patting him awkwardly back for a moment. "Me too? Uh? Bad day at the office, dear?"

Hakkai smiled, because all Gojyo's jokes made him smile, and let Gojyo go.

"No worse than usual," he said, because after a fashion it was true. "Were you making tea? That's lucky. Can I have a cup?"

Gojyo smiled again, a little like he was crazy, and a little like Hakkai might have been the best thing to have ever happened in his life. Hakkai ignored the pang in his chest that said possibly that was true and sat down at the table and waited as Gojyo poured the tea into two mended mugs and then sat down with him, and really, what would anyone else know? Hakkai was the lucky one.


End file.
